Now in its second year, Toronto’s annual allnight art expo brought out hundreds of thousands of nocturnal revellers with installations that left The Varsity both inspired, and a little underwhelmed (not to mention sleep deprived).
Event Horizon (Front Campus)
This was, by far, the fakest UFO crash I’ve ever witnessed. While the actors in character and the emergency response vehicles were well-done, the subject of the whole installation— the downed alien spaceship—just didn’t look cool or real enough. If you looked closely you could tell it was made out of painted wood, which doesn’t fly in space—or with me. A great idea, it’s too bad they couldn’t quite land it. —JORDAN BIMM
Deeparture (Isabel Bader Theatre)
This piece was completely compelling. I normally find video art installations to be fairly uninteresting, but watching a deer and a wolf in such an artificial environment really captured it for me. The focus of this short was not on the power dynamic between predator and prey, but on forcing the audience to reconstruct their perception of the “natural” environment in which we usually see these animals. I loved it. —MM
Three Readings (Hart House Squash Courts)
Did I miss something here? Entering squash courts and expecting them to look like a lecture hall, I found only a speaker producing the sound of… a squash game? Seriously? What could have been a clever re-assignment of space (culture jam style) was a disappointing installation that didn’t make me think of anything except my irritation at sound art. —MM
The Ghost Station (Lower Bay Station)
If you were willing to wait in the long line-up, it was totally worth it to see this hidden piece of urban Toronto folklore. Seeing so many people taking an interest in their city made this one of my favourite exhibits. —MM
Aurora Readiness Centre (Faculty of Architecture)
When you walk in and see helpful pamphlets on how to survive a nuclear attack, it is at once a comical and depressing experience. Then there’s a 1960s civil defense video, produced by the city of Toronto, that only heightens those feelings. (Duck and cover!) Patrons were invited to contribute paintings of their own about the nuclear world, making this a great experience for viewers and another of my favourites. —MM
Nightless City (Church & Wellesley) In fine fashion, this was a huge street party— complete with red lights and leather-clad window-dancing sadomasochists. The “gaybourhood” is always a good time if you’re out on the town, but it was exceptionally fun for Nuit Blanche. The lines to get into clubs were long, but the best part was out on the street anyway. Whip me and pour hot wax on my chest: this was a great time! —MM
Transmutations (H. G. Phelan Playhouse)
If you were one of the lucky ones who got to see the work of Atom Egoyan’s master class, congratulations! The performances on the verandah outside were respectable, but not overwhelming. I felt the performers were hampered by the video that was playing in the background, and would have preferred more scene work from the actors and less focus on a poorly integrated video. —MM
Night School (Hart House)
Most of the installations were lackluster, although Slow Dance With Teacher was a lot of fun. Who wouldn’t want to hear soft rock favourites blasted in the Great Hall? The rest, though, were conceited, and relied on free food early in the night to attract crowds. I had high hopes from the great exhibition here last year, but I was disappointed this second time around. —MM
Emergency Room Recruitment Centre (UC Art Centre)
Visitors were asked to write something they consider an emergency on a bandage that was then tied around their head. EERC gets top marks for trying to make visitors into artists, but when audience participation doesn’t reach critical mass, the situation is just awkward.— JC
Balloonscape (The Eaton Centre)
A fun idea, if underwhelming, this blob of tied-together tube balloons was smaller than I expected, though a photo of it now has pride of place as my desktop background. —JC
Femmebomb (Lisgar & Queen)
The parts of the Beatrice Lillie Health Centre that peeked through its one-night-only cladding of pink fabric and crochet looked more ominous than usual. Beyond that, though, neither the use of the domestic arts as a medium nor its subsequent association with the feminine seemed entirely meaningful. —JC
Incursion (Dovercourt & Queen)
Easily one of the highlights of the night, Craig Walsh proved the success of a simple concept done well. A film projected onto the inside of a storefront window, viewers on the street thought they saw gigantic fish overtaking an everyday landscape—exactly the visually mesmerizing incursion Nuit Blanche is supposed to be about. —JC
Abomasum (Trinity-Bellwoods Park)
What was more intriguing, the chocolate stag sculpture or the crowd, vegetarians among them, ravenously eyeing this big horned bonbon? Cries of “Kill it!” “Why do you have to do that?” and “Butcher the hecklers!” made the wait for my own taste of chocolate venison entirely worth it. —JC
Canard Development Group (Courtyard at McKinsey & Co., 110 Charles St. W.)
This representation of a mobile sales office (a red tarp held airborne by big yellow helium balloons) was perhaps a little too abstract. The fact that the office existed “off the grid” was admittedly a nice pun, but the installation only held the viewer’s attention for a minute or two at most.—RD
Metropolis (Charles & St. Thomas)
It was a downer that this installation was completely fenced off, because spending the evening running through what appeared to be a playground of bomb shelters just north of Victoria College was a surprisingly attractive prospect.—RD
From the Ground Up (Gardiner Museum)
The Gardiner Museum was a complete madhouse, deservingly so considering the free admission and the traditional Chinese acrobats spinning a red table in the air. Also adding to the spectacle was artist Ben Oakley’s brilliant electrical-tape mural, Mansion Cabin.—RD
Secular Confession Booth (35 Hazelton Ave.)
This innovative idea garnered some serious buzz in the daily papers leading up to Nuit Blanche and got people talking—about their darkest secrets. Occupying a small, softly-lit Yorkville chapel resonant with ambient music, a reassuring shadow behind a curtain listened to a seemingly endless series of revelations from anyone who had something on their mind.—RD
String of Diamonds (Trinity College Field)
U of T’s own feel-good visionaries Newmindspace put together a visually stunning string of blue lights that lit up the sky above Trinity College Field, turning it into one of the best places to take a breather between exhibits. Once the wide-eyed public got their collective second wind, they had the option of joining the impromptu rave going down in the adjacent parking lot.—RD
DSM5 (Royal Ontario Museum)
It’s good to finally see the ROM getting some use out of their expensive Crystal, as it was used as the backdrop for this performance by DVJ artist Charles Kriel, attracting a huge group of revelers to the museum’s doors for the rare spectacle of “a rocking dance party meets cultural institution.” A bizarre combination to be sure, but whoever said museums were just for stuffy old artifacts?—RD
ThunderEgg Alley: A Dumpster Diver’s
Paradise (Alley behind College & Spadina) Forgot to book a room (the only room) at the most exclusive dumpster hotel in town? Haul your aching bones up onto the dumpster’s outer wall and peep longingly at the folks inside, languidly lounging in white bathrobes on the very comfortable-looking bed. Swintak’s installation was executed beautifully, complete with professional, somewhat forbidding concierges and a cleaning staff who worked in between 10-minute sessions. Hanging out in the trash has never been so fun. —JANE BAO
Everybody Loves You 2 (Dundas & McCaul)
Passers-by entered this pink-and-red heartshaped structure, uttered those three little words, “I love you,” which were then broadcast on a flat-screen. With deliveries ranging from shy and giggly to surprisingly sincere, Daisuke Takeya’s exhibit was cute, but didn’t exactly evoke—as its introduction suggested—“ a rather funny Japanese pop manner.” —JB
Eat the Food! (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art)
MOCCA served up tasty wall paintings, portraits, and video installations about food— how we grow it, and how we consume it. Shelly Rahme’s Greasy Strata, a mound of shortening topped with three layers of potato chips, was particularly tempting, but patrolling security guards ensured that hungry patrons went outside to purchase freshly-made delicacies instead.—JB
Alluring Contradictions of Consumption (AWOL Gallery)
Lotion bottles, luxury watches and other goods adorned the dress of a figure drawn on plexi-glass. Though attractive from afar these became dizzying up close, overwhelming the distorted female figures. Carrie Chisholm used transparent materials to great effect, highlighting how images are skewed and commodified through consumerism. Overflowing garbage bins outside the gallery (unintentionally) added to the effect. —JB
The Gateway (Dufferin & Queen Bridge)
Parkour, the French art of jumping between buildings, was supposedly on display at this installation. Opting for a theatrical rather than an athletic show, the bits of jumping—from a billboard to a wall, running along a bridge, then over a fence and down the wall—were impressive, but ultimately too few and far between the uninspiring narrative of a man in dressed in orange stalking the jumpers.—JB
